ActBlue helped candidates, committees and organizations raise almost a million dollars more this month than we did in April 2012, when the presidential election was really ramping up. That’s awesome.
What does that mean? It means that more people are donating more often. And beyond that it means that the amount of people engaged and connected with the electoral process is going up. People are fighting to have their voice heard and standing up for what they believe in now that they have the tools to do so.
We’re pretty proud of that. Take a look at how the numbers stack up:
| April ’10 | April ’11 | April ’12 | April ’13 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contributions | 31,000 | 51,727 | 122,619 | 170,090 |
| Volume ($) | $2,767,800.98 | $2,580,800.91 | $5,485,860.74 | $6,382,236.67 |
| Mean Donation | $89.28 | $49.89 | $44.74 | $37.52 |
| Committees | 1,235 | 677 | 1,651 | 1,031 |
Our average contribution rate is dwindling – it’s now $37.52. That’s the one metric we’re thrilled to see going down. It’s less than half of what it was 3 years ago during the midterm elections and $12 lower than in April 2011 when we were in the midst of the grassroots movement in Wisconsin. Even with smaller contributions, our overall volume is growing, which means that people are more engaged than ever. In April alone, we processed 170,000 contributions, an increase of 50,000 compared to April 2012. This growth is driven by an increasing number of small dollar donors who are becoming active and pooling their resources together to make a big impact.
Another interesting fact? 621 fewer committees raised money in April 2013 than in April 2012. We don’t like seeing numbers go down, but that difference is understandable as there are always more races during a big election year. Knowing that a smaller pool of campaigns and organizations pulled off these impressive fundraising numbers makes it even sweeter. These groups are building truly grassroots efforts and we’re excited to see them grow.
The South Carolina special election between Elizabeth Colbert Busch and Mark Sanford is a prime example. Sanford recently called us an “ultra liberal money funnel” and tried to discredit Colbert Busch’s hard-earned grassroots donations. No wonder he was nervous: she raised an impressive $731,100 from 19,328 donors this month and helped drive lots of traffic. That’s a whole lot of engaged folks for a spring election in an off year.
Our biggest tool for building online grassroots programs has been ActBlue Express, which allows returning donors to give with just one click every time they get served up an ActBlue donation page. That means all Express users are valuable for any campaign or organization who decides to use us. Last month over half (52.1%) of our site wide contributors were ActBlue Express users and we brought our total Express users up to 552,188. We know that these users are our most dedicated donors, so we’re happy to see that number growing!
